It was the result of the introduction of the drug Thorazine. This was the first effective antipsychotic drug.

The abbreviated version is that in 1955 the total population was164 million people.

Of those 558,239 were hospitalized as mentally ill.

By 1994 the hospitalized population was 71,619. The true magnitude of the issue was that if the portion of the population in 1994 was equal to that of 1955, 885,010people should have been hospitalized.

How many were hospitalized? 71,619.

Does that point to a problem?

Over three-fourths of the population should have been hospitalized in the same rules applied!

Back to our little, old lady, this is not intended as a pun or disparagement.

“She testified that she had become extremely upset in the grocery store before repeatedly stabbing the man in front of her in the checkout line.”

The hearing officer asked if she had been hearing voices at the time she stabbed the man. ‘Yes’, she replied, she had.

‘What were the voices telling you’ he inquired.

“She explained that the voices were telling her not to hurt the man, but he had gotten in the express checkout lane with more than 10 items, and that made her so mad that she couldn’t stop herself.”